


An Alternate Lullaby

by setissma



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, M/M, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-10
Updated: 2017-01-10
Packaged: 2018-09-16 14:39:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9276386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/setissma/pseuds/setissma
Summary: What might have happened if they'd chosen the right person to keep that particular secret. (Also known as, sheer, unadulterated, inexcusable fluffy Remus/Sirius nothing-bad-happened-to-anyone AU.)





	

It’s half nine in the evening, and Remus is drowsing on the sofa, caught tight between the curl of three-year-old fingers against his collar and Sirius’s weight behind him, warm and canine secure. They’re under so many blankets that no one can quite move, Sirius least of all, but it’s all right. The things beneath the blankets – twelve-days-‘til-Christmas hope, comfortable affection, and a wooden train that whistles halfheartedly when Harry closes his fingers around it in sleep – are easy to live with this year, and Sirius has learned to hold still in the past six months, some sort of quiet miracle. Remus thinks – maybe, finally, regretfully – that he might be growing up. Twenty-three is a trade off, he thinks. A reckless heart and a passion for danger have been exchanged for folded towels and someone who leaves his shoes in the front hall when he comes in the house. Remus minds in ways he thought he wouldn’t, but it’s all right, some how. The boy he fell in love with still lurks around the edges of owning a toaster and waking at eight on weekends. He swipes Remus’s popcorn at the cinema and tangles their hands together in the park like he doesn’t care who’s watching.

Sirius nudges his nose to Remus’s neck, warm breath beneath the collar of his jumper, thumb pressed across his hip, relaxed as Sirius gets, these days. Remus knows he’s watching the door and keeping careful track of every little catch in Harry’s breathing, listening to James in the kitchen, humming along to the wireless as he does the supper dishes and paperwork, but that’s all right, too; Remus doesn’t mind a wary Sirius, so long as Sirius isn’t wary of _him_ , anymore.

Sometimes he’s grateful for so many fights and then, finally, veritaserum-laced coffee; sometimes he’s not. He wishes trust had been more than chemical, more than the absolute value of an equation of exponential decay, but he’d rather have this than anything, seventeen and a half apology kisses at the base of his spine, a dog’s head beneath his fingers, finally being allowed to come _home_ , forgiveness.

Peter is the thin ice in the middle of the lake they skate around, the empty space on their Christmas shopping list, and Remus finds Sirius with his head in his hands, sometimes, _how could I have thought it was you_?

James and Sirius blame themselves, but Lily had it right, Remus knows, with her _get the hell out of my house_ and a bolted door. It was a little like falling in love, the dawning realisation of hate and betrayal, hexes instead of held hands, cold fury in James Potter’s eyes instead of devotion. Sirius was the right choice, Remus knows, not because Remus loves him or because Sirius is particularly good at keeping secrets, but because he knows the map of told ones (one told one) like the palm of his own hand, knows the consequences and the reaction, Newton’s Third Law. Even if Sirius didn’t love James (he does) and Lily (he does) and Harry (he _does_ ), Remus would still trust him to keep this secret. Sirius, more than anyone else, knows its value.

“Thinking?” Sirius murmurs, and slides a calloused hand against his stomach, reassuring.

Remus is still tired from the full moon, bones so tense he can’t sleep at night, and there’s a perpetual headache lurking between his shoulder blades, but Harry is a furnace when he sleeps, warm enough to ease the ache from his ribs, and Sirius knows just how to press his fingers against the base of Remus’s neck and sweep _out_ to make it all go away.

“Thinking,” Remus agrees. He can feel Sirius smile against his shoulder.

“Should’ve known, Moony,” he murmurs, readjusting the blankets, wrapping an arm around Harry, who grumbles in his sleep, face tucked into Remus’s jumper. 

Remus watches Sirius brush Harry’s hair off his forehead, avoiding the jagged, almost-healed cut left over from a run in with a particularly vicious Christmas tree branch. They’ve all talked about another baby; James and Lily tried for awhile, almost from Harry’s second birthday to his third, but Remus knows that there are things that just don’t take when a woman is as tired, worn-down, war-weary as Lily is. Maybe someday, he thinks, but he knows no one is quite unhappy with this family. Little, broken and reshaped, but Remus trusts the contours of the five of them more than he’s ever trusted anything else, Sirius at his side and James at his back, and Harry’s more than happy with Sirius to play blocks with. 

He’s quiet, almost solemn, and Lily worries that it’s from being kept under lock and key for so long, but Remus recognizes the thoughtful silence in his eyes. Unthinkable that the son of James Potter should turn out to be more like Remus Lupin than anyone else, but some things are just unavoidable.

Remus loves, a little, that Sirius loves him, reads him book after book, is always more than willing to play trains and give voices to Harry’s stuffed toys. Sometimes they take him, when James and Lily are too tired to keep going, no matter how quiet Harry is, and he sleeps between them all night long.

He knows this war might leave enough orphans to see Sirius put his parenting skills to use on more than alternate Sundays. He still loves, though, to watch the true-love flash between Harry’s eyes and Sirius’s when Sirius tosses him in the air, catches him safe, tucked close as if he’s more valuable than the World Cup snitch Sirius might have caught, once.

This, here, is worth more to any of them than every other dream. Lily’s decorated mantle and Sirius’s wool socks tally more than quidditch and university and the secret hopes of teenage boys, kept close in men’s hearts.

“We should,” Sirius says, softly, and Remus murmurs sleepy agreement without the sentence finished; they’re sleeping here tonight, company for James with Lily gone to her parents’.

They wriggle free of the blankets, Remus keeping Harry close to his chest, cheek warm against his shoulder. “For bed, Prongs,” Sirius calls, into the kitchen, and James sounds agreement, the familiar back and forth of a navigated ocean, known like the curve of Sirius’s smile.

Harry starts to wake when Remus tries to slip him into his crib, with sleepy whimpers, and Sirius takes him, carries him into the guest bedroom. They glance at each other across the hall, Sirius rummaging one-handed for his shaving kit, a half blink that says _he’s had nightmares, lately_ and a subtle tilt of Sirius’s head that leads to Remus taking him back, settling Harry on the bed. “Just a minute,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to his forehead, and he’s almost asleep again, letting go so Remus can undress, content as long as he doesn’t have to give in to being _entirely_ alone.

Remus slips out of clothes, folding them carefully, pulls on pyjama bottoms and is reaching for one of Sirius’s worn jumpers when Sirius settles a hand on his wrist, guides an arm around his waist. “Keep you warm,” he promises, face against the curve of Remus’s shoulder, delicately avoiding cuts and bruises. He smells of toothpaste and laundry soap, familiar.

Remus gives in. He likes sleeping close enough to feel Sirius’s heartbeat, stomachs together, head against his shoulder, has _always_ liked, even in four-poster beds. Sirius gets in first when he pulls back the covers, pulling Remus back against him with a sleepy sort of possession, and Remus settles Harry on his other side, laughs when little feet press against his stomach as Harry rearranges himself into a ball beneath the covers, not quite waking. “Night,” he murmurs to Harry, softly. “Love you.” Important to say, even if Harry has already had all his goodnight kisses and hugs.

“Sure, tell him goodnight first,” Sirius grumbles, rearranging the blankets to keep Remus warm, and Remus laughs, tilting his head back for a goodnight kiss.

“Don’t let the bed bugs bite,” he whispers, solemnly, against Sirius’s mouth, and Sirius laughs, pulling him a little closer.

“Sweet dreams,” Sirius murmurs, settling in for the night, and that’s all right, then, Remus thinks, with a smile. He’s already there.


End file.
